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Family Values

When you hear the word ‘family’ what comes to your mind? Most likely, it’s a mother and father with two to three kids that live in a stable average household. Why is it that we don’t think of a single father with kids? Or a couple only having adopted kids? Or families raised by a same sex couple? There’s plenty of other family scenarios besides these, but how come we don’t consider them more often? As far as our society has progressed, I think it’s time we go against the norms of society and determine for ourselves what a real family is.

Most people think family is just the people you are related to, but it’s so much more than that. Family is the people in your life that give you all the love and support to move forward in life, which sounds really cheesy, but it’s true. What aggravates me more than anything is when there’s a character who tries to find a biological parent that was absent from their life in a T.V. show, movie, or book. But when they find them, they are completely selfish and inconsiderate of the child, but they somehow learn to ‘be a better person’ and the child lets them back in their life, despite how horrible their parent was. I’m not saying this plot isn’t always a bad idea, but I hate how it’s executed so poorly. This plot makes us believe that we should be more forgiving of someone and let them into our lives just because they’re related. We need to let people in our lives because we care about each other, not because we’re ‘family’.

Another family value people should reconsider is how families are formed. When someone hears that a couple has kids but they aren’t married, they’ll probably be more judgemental towards them than a couple who is married and has kids despite how their relationship is. Why are families more glorified when they get married then have kids rather than being in a relationship and having kids without being married? It’s because most people will think that the couple was careless and they’re only staying together because of the kids, however, this isn’t always true. It’s never considered that the couple who aren’t married could genuinely love each other and they stay together because they want to, not because of them having children. It’s usually not considered the other way around that the married couple might only stay together because of the kids and not because they love each other.

Over time, we have greatly progressed for our standards of family values. However, it’s still an issue that we need to continue to debunk stereotypes and outdated standards if we want to continue moving forward.

Hey! My name is Mackenzi Williams, and this is my first year on the Paw Prints staff. I'm a Junior and a member of the First Ladies Drill Team. I'm also a member of Modern Language Club, HOSA, and Key...